This invention pertains generally to the field of recycling used beverage containers. In particular, the present invention is a system for rapidly scanning large numbers of containers and maintaining talleys of the numbers, brands, and types of containers scanned.
In recent years, several states have enacted mandatory deposit legislation for beverage containers. In these states, grocery stores and other retail outlets are primarily responsible for redeeming used beverage containers returned by consumers. In some situations, the retailer sorts the containers by brand or type. However, in many situations, retailers simply accumulate unsorted containers in bags or boxes. The containers are picked up on a regular basis from retailers by a clearing house. The clearing house sorts and/or counts the containers by brand, so that the appropriate bottlers or distributors can be invoiced for deposits returned by each retailer to consumers. Traditional manual sorting and counting techniques used by clearing houses are relatively slow and costly.
UPC scanners have gained wide acceptance in grocery stores where they are used at checkout counters to read the UPC, or bar code, from items purchased by consumers. Industry standards have been adopted, and a unique UPC is assigned to each product. Like other food packages, each brand and type of beverage container has been assigned a unique UPC. Although this coding system was originally designed for use in the context of expediting the checkout process in grocery stores, this technology has also been found to be applicable in recycling used beverage containers.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,248,384 discloses a general system using a UPC scanner to read the codes from used beverage containers. The code on each container is then used to direct the container to one of a number of different outfeed conveyors for re-use, reclamation, or disposal. One principal problem associated with using a UPC scanner for this purpose has been attaining a satisfactorily high processing rate. The scanner used in the preferred embodiment has a field of view consisting of a line a few inches in length. Thus, the problem is to provide a means for rapidly feeding containers through the field of view of the scanner, one at a time and at a controlled rate. The situation is further complicated by the fact that each container must be rotated while in the field of view of the scanner to allow the scanner to view the entire circumference of the container to locate the UPC. This combined problem of rapidly transporting a series of containers into the view of the scanner while rotating each container, is difficult to solve without introducing needless complexity. With existing systems of this general type, each container is individually staged in front of the scanner by an indexing mechanism, and then rotated by a separate mechanism. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,248,389 (Column 2, lines 48, et seq.) mentions that a turntable can be used to rotate the container before the scanner. Alternatively, a roller positioned under the container can be employed to spin the container (Column 4, lines 14 et seq.). However, arrangements of this type require a transport or indexing mechanism to load each container to and from the turntable or roller. Other types of mechanisms used to rotate containers are discussed generally in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,991,883; 4,029,958; 3,532,215; and 4,497,409. In contrast, the present invention accomplishes an elegant simplicity of design by using a diagonal guide mounted over a declining conveyor belt to both rotate the containers and move them through the path of the scanner. The conveyor moving past under the guide causes the containers to spin as they slide along the guide. One or more scanners are directed at the lower end of the guide so as to read the UPC from each container as its slides and rotates along the edge of the guide. Those containers whose UPC's have been successfully read by at least one of the scanners are allowed to drop off the edge of the conveyor into a bin or onto another conveyor for densification or re-use in the case of reusable containers. Those containers that cannot be read are diverted into a separate bin for later manual processing. The combination of a diagonal guide and conveyor to simultaneously transport and rotate the containers under the scanner constitute a substantial improvement over the prior art in terms of speed, cost, and dependability.